Devya Athwal, founder of Athwal Resourcing & Coaching, is scheduled to present two sessions at ENGAGE UK & Europe, 13–14 October in London. Athwal returned to the FM podcast to discuss the mindset shifts that help finance professionals become more resilient and adaptable in the face of uncertainty, why professionals don’t need a leadership title to be strategic, and tips for improving task prioritisation when demand exceeds capacity.
“I think there’s a myth that strategic thinking is only for the CEO and the top board,” Athwal said. “You don’t have to wait for that title to be strategic. You can start by asking better questions, stay curious, and really have the courage just to step into whatever you want to do.”
Athwal spoke about how accountants can “dance with the fear” in a 2024 episode.
What you’ll learn from this episode:
- What changed Athwal’s relationship with fear.
- Five small steps that strengthen resilience and adaptability.
- Why being overly analytical can make it harder to navigate uncertainty.
- What skills can help finance professionals advance their careers.
- Techniques for improving task prioritisation — including a simple, two-letter word.
Play the episode below or read the edited transcript:
— To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Steph Brown at Stephanie.Brown@aicpa-cima.com.
Transcript
Steph Brown: Hi, listeners. Welcome to the FM podcast. I’m Steph Brown. Today I’m speaking with upcoming ENGAGE UK & Europe speaker and career coach Devya Athwal. I spoke with Devya at ENGAGE back in 2024 about how finance professionals can dance with the fear, overcome limiting beliefs, and climb the career ladder.
Today, we’ll be looking ahead to Devya’s session in October. On this episode, we will cover key skills that enable resilience and adaptability, improving task prioritisation, and practical tips for navigating uncertainty.
Welcome back, Devya. Thanks for coming on the podcast.
Devya Athwal: Yeah, thanks very much for having me back. It’s nice to be here.
Brown: It’s great to have you on again.
Back in our conversation in 2024, you said that letting go of day-to-day fears that hold us back professionally often requires facing them head on, or “dancing with the fear”, in order to progress at work. You’re an accomplished public speaker, but do you think you’re good at “dancing with the fear”?
Athwal: I actually first heard this phrase was when I attended Tony Robbins event in Birmingham. He talked about this concept of “dancing with the fear”. He talked about Bruce Springsteen coming out on stage. Before he entered the stage, even after decades of performing, he got butterflies.
Tony explained that that feeling of fear and the feeling of excitement were incredibly close. Psychologically, they actually are very similar. It’s your body’s way of preparing you that something important is about to happen. And that completely changed my perspective on how I see fear. Instead of asking, “How do I get rid of this fear?”, which is a lot of what I used to do, I started asking, “What do I need to prepare myself for?”
I felt those butterflies when I qualified as an accountant. I was asked to go to Singapore to do some work in the newly set up Asia Pacific office out there. I also felt it when I left the finance profession, going into recruitment, setting up my own business as a business owner with Athwal Resourcing. And the fear of the unknown. Speaking at conferences. They started off with 10, 15 [people] and now there’s hundreds of people in the room.
I still have those butterflies before I come up on stage. But it’s in all aspects. When I sit on boards for the first time, sitting as a nonexecutive director. Going into the room knowing there’s really accomplished professionals in the room, it was, “How do I go in that room and feel I’m part of that environment?”
The fear hasn’t disappeared, but the relationship with it has. So now I see fear as a sign that I’m growing. Especially with CIMA and other events where I talk. I just ask myself a couple of questions: “What is this opportunity asking of me? What do I need to provide to the audience? What do I need to prepare myself for so that I can make sure that I am adding value? And who’s going to benefit from this?” Because then what I’m doing is I’m taking it away from me, and I’m actually giving it more to the audience.
So, it’s just having that inner belief that you can do it. But yes, I still have the butterflies. But it’s, “Right, OK, what are we trying to get out of this, really?” And making sure that the audience gets the message of whatever we need to try and get across to them.
Brown: I guess two traits that can help us adjust to “dancing with the fear” are resilience and adaptability. They’re two key skills that you’re speaking about in October. What can help finance professionals become more resilient and more adaptable?
Athwal: I think one thing I’ve learned when I’ve been coaching finance professionals and working with senior leaders is that resilience isn’t all about being tough all the time. It’s about when you have got a challenge in front of you and say that you haven’t got all the answers, it’s how do you best navigate through that? It could be in any scenario. It could be a downturn. How do you come out of that and how do you bounce back and recover? Resilience, for me, is the quickness of how you can come back and recover; the bounce-back from where you are.
There are five skills that I always talk about, and I will be talking about them in October as well. The first one is really about being self-aware. Know what your strengths are, know what your blind spots are, speak to people around you, understand where maybe you can learn and grow, and also recognise the stories that you’re telling yourself internally: “I can’t do this; I can’t do that.” And actually think about how you can, or who you need to speak to, to be able to do that.
That leads on to the second skill, which is more about the growth mindset. It’s moving from that, “I can’t do it” to “I can’t do it yet.” So, who can you speak to? Is there a mentor? Is there a coach? Is there a colleague that you can speak to who can help you move quicker to where you need to get to? Or is there something that you can learn through skills? I know that we’re having to adapt quite quickly, quite rapidly, to the new AI way of doing things. So, how can you have a growth mindset to be able to do that, so that you can get to whatever solution you need to get to, quicker?
I think it’s also good to have a curious mindset. The best finance professionals don’t just analyse the numbers. They just ask better questions. They’re curious about the business, they’re curious about how they can provide more value to their customers, they’re curious about how to get more efficiencies out of the operations and giving better information to the people that they support. So being curious also gets you to be much more resilient because through that curiosity, you find solutions.
Then it’s adaptability. You mentioned AI, we can’t ignore it. There’s a skill out there. There’s technology out there. The world isn’t going to slow down. We have to raise our bar to learn how we can use new technology to provide much more efficiency within the organisations that we’re in and be comfortable doing that. There is a fear of, “Oh my God, I’m going to be left behind.” But actually do help individuals to learn and adapt.
Then it’s obviously the last one, which is about taking action. Confidence doesn’t come before action. Confidence comes by taking that first step. I know for myself, at the beginning of the year, I put on my whiteboard behind me, “If I set my business up today, what would I do differently?” Every morning I was looking at that thinking, “What could I do differently?” Every week I just picked one new AI tool and said, “OK, let me have a little play around with it.” Then, over time, there were a couple that I could really utilise.
It’s taking those baby-step actions to move yourself forward. Especially in today’s environment, all of us have to have that kind of growth mindset and then adapt ourselves and take the action to be able to be much more resilient in this changing environment that we’re in at the moment.
Brown: You mentioned AI, and there’s obviously a lot of uncertainty behind those tools. What are two or three practical steps finance professionals can take to help them navigate uncertainty?
Athwal: Finance professionals, especially in the seats that they sit in, are in a very privileged position to know what’s going on. But what happens is a lot of them are very analytical. What we probably need to do is stop and zoom out a bit and look at the bigger picture.
Because when you’re looking at the bigger picture, you can actually see what’s really happening and then say, “What is the one thing, or one or two things, that I need to do to move myself forward?” When you see what your role is in this environment that you’re in, your work environment, your home environment, wherever it might be, you can then say, “OK, now that I’ve zoomed out, I know what I have to do.”
Then you focus. Then you focus on what needs to be done and take the action. It’s a bit like, just stop, pause, think. Where are we? What do we need to do? A bit like COVID. What do we need to do? Not react emotionally on it and say, “OK, we’re all in the same situation. What do we need to do?” In COVID, it was, right, everyone needs to work from home. Before we knew it, we did it.
It’s the same now. We’re in an environment where there’s so much uncertainty. A lot of people are fearing their roles, their jobs. How do we pause and don’t see it from a negative point of view? Say, “OK, how can this support us? How can AI support us in our organisations? What’s going to move the needle forward?” And then take the action.
Brown: One of your sessions is focused on strategic thinking. What are two or three tips you would give listeners looking to harness strategic thinking in this uncertain business environment?
Athwal: I think there’s a myth that strategic thinking is only for the CEO and the top board. I think strategic thinking, whatever level you’re at in an organisation, is so paramount at the moment.
There’s a couple of things that I would definitely say. Look at the bigger picture, but look at where your North Star is going. I’m talking to a lot of CEOs at the moment, CFOs, who are giving me a lot of insights in terms of strategic thinking. A common theme that’s coming out is where are we heading? Knowing where you’re going, what’s your North Star, whether it’s five years, 10 years, three years, a year.
Then from that bigger picture, it’s breaking it down. It’s breaking it down to say, “OK, if it’s a year, what’s our vision on that? What are our quarterly milestones, our priorities that we need to be able to do in order to meet that goal for the year?” Then breaking it down even more so that you’ve got practical actions that you need to be taking on a monthly or weekly basis.
That can apply whether you’re the CFO of an organisation or a management accountant working on their accounts. Everyone has to be bought in and then everyone within their organisations understanding their role to contribute towards that. But that North Star is really important, and the more and more I’m talking to individuals, they’re all saying a very similar thing. It’s knowing the direction you’re going in, otherwise you’re literally firefighting all the time.
One last thing I would say is, look, technical expertise gives you the credibility. It always does. But it’s the resilience, the adaptability, and the strategic thinking I think that makes you an influential leader, whether you’re a team leader, a manager, or a senior leader. You don’t have to wait for that title to be strategic. You can start by asking better questions, stay curious, and really have the courage just to step into whatever you want to do.
We talk about “dancing with the fear”, but by coming out of your comfort zone, you’re actually growing, and that then allows other people to see your skills and your expertise. Before you know it, you’re climbing the ladder again. Your technical skills get you to a certain level, but it’s all the other stuff that will actually move you up, really.
Brown: You’ve got to believe in yourself, right? You’re your own driver of success.
Athwal: Yeah, and it’s scary. People might think it’s boasting, but I don’t think it is. I think it’s more about being confident in your abilities to make a difference, whatever that might be.
Brown: One element that could make these practical actions more difficult [is] when finance professionals struggle to prioritise tasks. What are some common hurdles, in your experience, that impede task prioritisation and how can finance professionals overcome them?
Athwal: Prioritisation, when you’ve got a long list of things that need to be done, your biggest challenge then is lack of time. You think you haven’t got enough time to do everything. I think it’s more a lack of clarity to know what is important and what’s urgent and what needs to be done now. Because when you’ve just got a list of 20 things to do, everything feels urgent.
Or it could be that you might be an individual who has got many stakeholders internally. You might have the CEO, you might have your board directors or your staff, and you’re trying to please everyone. So that could also be a hurdle towards prioritisation. Then there are those inherent behaviours that some people have got, which is perfection: “I’ve got to do everything in the right way.” Or they’re having to wait for more information from other people. Or they lose sight of what the big picture is.
So, I would say, look, there’s many different frameworks that you can use in terms of prioritisation. There have been studies done. [For] a lot of people, the maximum amount of priorities they can have in any one day is three. So, I use [a framework] for myself and I say, “What are my big three priorities of the day?” One might be related to finances, one might be related to the operations of the business, and one might be a future-forward project.
If I can do something on each of those, then I feel I’ve done well. But there could be days where actually everything is around the finances because I’ve got jobs that I need to fill, people I need to speak to. So, it’s flexing it so that you know timelines and deadlines that need to be met and giving yourself enough bandwidth and also time to get that done.
What feels important today may not be urgent until next week. If you’ve got the time to do it, then absolutely do it. But if everything is urgent like it needs to be done today, then absolutely you can feel a bit overwhelmed. How I work it is I work with my stakeholders. What is their timeline? Then I know what their deadline is, and I will then prioritise according to that. So, I’ll always find out, “What’s your deadline?” “Right, OK. Let me work back.” Then I have certain milestones. I want to meet up with you to say, “Are we on track to where we need to get to?”
When you’re in control of that, that’s when you can actually work to your best abilities. It’s when you’re trying to do everything at the same time that you’re not working to your best abilities. Work on the things that are important but make sure they don’t become too urgent.
Brown: Especially when day-to-day priorities and demands are growing and there are also these strategic initiatives that are behind you, it can feel like, “Oh, I have to keep multitasking because I’m doing more”. But then your focus is not really directed anywhere, so in some ways you’re doing less.
Athwal: Yeah, absolutely.
I think the other thing is when you’ve got so much on your plate, it’s OK to say no.
I used to always say yes to everything. Then one day, I started saying, “No, I can’t do that because I’ve got these two or three things I’ve got to do.” “Oh, right. When can you get it done?”
I realised I can be in control of my time. Likewise, finance professionals can do the same as well.
Brown: In closing, what two or three things are you looking forward to about ENGAGE this year? And what do you hope people will take away from your sessions?
Athwal: It’s a privilege to come back and speak again at a CIMA event.
I’m just the person who is facilitating. So, when I am asked to talk at CIMA or other events like this, because my network is quite wide, I love finding out from the ground level what people are doing. How are they becoming resilient? How are they being agile in this uncertain world that we’re living in?
I’ve got a lot of research that I’m doing at the moment with CEOs, finance directors on what does strategic thinking actually looks like in practice. How do they make decisions when they’re under cost pressures? So hopefully finance professionals who are in the room can learn from that.
We’ll have some frameworks that they can take away. I always make sure that there’s something there for the individual that they can take back and work on for themselves. So, there will be practical tips that they can take away.
Brown: Thank you so much, Devya. It was great speaking to you again.
Athwal: Thank you for having me again.
